When I look back on my life and the many Thanksgivings that I've been fortunate enough to experience, the ones I cherish most are the ones we use to have at my Grandma's house in Michigan during my early childhood years. Though some of the Thanksgivings I've had throughout the other periods of my life were pretty damn near spectacular too, the ones at my Grandma's house are the ones that will always remain closest and dearest to me. Because the food was great? Oh hell yes, no one could cook up a storm of a feast like my Grandma did! But it was more than just the wonderful food of that day, it truly was about spending time with the family members we didn't get to see the rest of the year because we always found ourselves living in this-or-state each time Dad got transferred from military base to military base. Spending time with my grandparents, taking long walks out by the marshes with my Aunt Elise and then coming back to the house and writing those letters to Santa Claus, which you always knew would be answered when we'd go back to Grandma's for Christmas-time - these are the things I look back on. It's funny, as much as I have enjoyed this holiday every year, it's never been one of my personal favorites yet some of my fondest childhood memories revolve around it.
Whenever we would come up to Michigan from either Kansas or western Ohio, I not only was excited and doing somersaults several days prior to the actual trip itself but I always always prayed that we would arrive in town at least a couple of days prior so that while Mom and my Aunt Sal were helping Gram do all the prep work for the giant Thanksgiving feast I would have time to hang out with my Grandpa and my Aunt Elise. Anonymity withstanding, I'll say this much about that place - it truly was the "smelly little town" that Madonna labeled it years ago; but, as anyone who visits or lives there will tell you, thats ONLY when the sugar beet factory there is releasing post-waste materials following the sugar beets being processed into various sugar products. What Madonna, nor the residents who still live there, didnt tell people is that when the sugar beets are being switched over to the brown-sugar production process, the sweet smell that permeates the dark, crisp, fall-time skies there is unlike any other sweet smell on the entire planet! It's notta sugary-sweet smell, nor a bakery-like fragrance, you truly have to experience it to believe it. Here's the low-down on the major fuss - during sugar-beet time or "campaigns" as they call them (justifiably so!) the sweet smell I just wrote about happens about 2 or 3 times a day, for about half hour intervals, whereas the rotten, shitty (literally, no kidding!) smell will last off-n-on for 12 to 16 hours per day, in hourly intervals. Yeah, pretty intense either way you look at it.
As soon as we arrived in town, we'd go directly to Grandma's house and her and Grandpa and Aunt Elise would literally be waiting for us all with open arms - I can still feel each and every one of those hugs, even the Muguet-like scent that was on my Aunt Elise's neck every time she hugged me. Boy, do I miss that woman. Anyways, we'd unload the station wagon and haul all our luggage and things from the car and haul them upstairs to my Grandma's house, all while Grandpa was telling us what "special treats" he'd have waiting for us kids downstairs - various candies, usually chocolate stars for my two sisters and seafoam for me and always, always that mountainous tower of Grape Ne-Hi soda in the old-fashioned bottles that were always found sitting in the old-fashioned fruit cellar out back. Nowadays a diabetic no-no but back then, Heaven on Earth to us kids. We'd get unpacked, race downstairs to the giant country-style kitchen that at the time consisted of towering giant cupboard after cupboard holding all the ingredients that would soon become a part of another one of Grandma's unforgettable Thanksgiving dinners. I remember chattering away with her, Grandpa and my Aunt Elise while inhaling all the heavenly smells that permeated the entire lower part of the house the night before Thanksgiving - simmering baked beans in the oven, freshly baked homade rolls sitting out on the counter-tops and those religious-experience-like Pumpkin pies just yearning to get inhaled by a bunch of little military brats!
As I mentioned earlier, some of those Thanksigivings we would arrive as late as the evening before the big day but the ones where we got into town a day or two early (depending on what mood Dad's commander was in at the time), those were THE BEST! The long walks Aunt Elise and I took out by the marshes were truly the best of times for me. We'd take a couple of walking sticks that we made from one of the Box Elder trees out back, grab a thermis of Hot Chocolate and spend a couple of hours walking and exploring. The things I loved most about those walks along the watery marshes were the encounters we had with the animal kingdom as well as the inhabitants of the marshes themselves. One time we found ourselves walking within exactly 1 foot away from a mother Fox and her little bubbas, and it just took my breath away! Elise told me to be very quiet, to back up to the other side of the road where we could watch them without scaring them. We did just that and I'll never forget how tame that mother Fox was for as long as I live - she literally laid down and rested while her 4 little ones laid their heads on her stomach, every one of them content to soak up the fall-time sun that afternoon. Another time we were walking along the marshes and all of a sudden I saw 2 or 3 Goldfish-colored fish jump right outta the water and I turned to Elise and said "That just can't be!" to which she said it indeed was, so like any other 8 year old I asked how and she told me. Those fish were the Goldfish that nobody wanted anymore and when they were let go, rather than dying, they became famillies with the local carp and the rest is history! I laughed so hard but years later I found out she was indeed telling the truth - back then Goldfish weren't genetically altered for size like they are now and when left natural, they will grow as big as a carp or the Japanese Koi of today. A logical explanation for us adults but for a kid back then it was like magic seeing those fish jumping and swimming.
At night, while my Mom and Dad and 2 sisters slept in the other bedrooms upstairs (there were 3) I would always get my Aunt Sal's old bedroom. After all the lights were out, I'd sit up on the bed and just gaze outside the window that showed the giant backyard and farmer's fields out back, as well as the 20 to 30 foot tall mountains of sugar-beets just waiting to get processed. I remember looking out at the tall radio towers in far away field, with their red lights blinking intermittenly and wondering what it woulda been like to live in a normal house filled with normal people who had normal loving hearts, versus moving from base-to-base as we did all those years. I remember being a kooky kid trying to make wishes on those red blinking lights, trying to time them just right so that my wish was always made at the same exact time one would blink on and the other ones would blink off. Who says a kid has to daydream during the daylight hours?
I've always been a night-owl for as long as I can remember but I remember I use to sleep in major-late on those mini-holidays up to Michigan, most likely due to the fact that it was always always so damn noisey living on a military base - there was always some asshole who was sounding guns or driving noisey vehicles between 5 and 6 a.m. always waking us up, without fail, every single morning, even on weekends. But not there in Michigan. The only thing that ever woke me up there was my Grandma or my Aunt Elise leaning over the bed and smothering me with kisses-n-hugs, reminding me it was Thanksgiving Day and to get downstairs to eat my French Toast or my Pancakes fairly quickly so that I'd be ready on time to watch the parade on tv. Ah, the life of a kid, heh?
When Aunt Sal and Uncle Will arrived shortly after the parade was over on tv, you just knew that the dinner would soon be arriving on the giant dining room table off the kitchen doorway. And whatta feast that dinner was, every single time. The menu always always strecthed far-n-wide...the turkey...mashed potatoes-n-gravy.....stuffing, 2 kinds, regular and Gram's famous Apple-Raisen stuffing, my favorite (still is to this day though I havent had it in over a decade)...squash, BUT always Buttercup, not Butter-nut, not those nasty kinds folks nowadays eat, Acorn or Spaghetti Squash, but good ole' fashioned Buttercup, accentuated with a bit of butter and justa touch of brown sugar...homade baked beans....2 or 3 fruit salads..a giant vegetable-relish day (still remember wearing those black olives on my fingers! Germ City nowadays but so kewl back then...homade butter rolls (I knew I shoulda got that recipe from Aunt Elise before she passed)...and for the desert, the pies, always those scrumptious homade pies..the traditional Pumpkin, accompanied by Mincemeat (Grandpa's favorite), Banana Cream (Dad's favorite) Coconut Cream (everyone's favorite!) and then either a Cherry or Banana-Rhubarb pie (ask me for the recipe, it''s so easy and the flavors combined will blow your taste buds off the map!). Mannn, let me tell you, you never saw kids so friggin stuffed to the gills with food as my sisters and I were. Growing up, the only time we ever had any of those delicious family feasts is during the holidays, so us kids were just as overstuffed as the adults were - but it was wonderful, all the good things to eat, the chatter all around the table and the laughter, especially the laughter.
Afterwards, everyone, including all the men too, would help clear the table and help with dishes, followed by the men plopping their stuffed bellies on the living room couch and floor and watching football while the women would play cards at the dining room table and gossip about all the relatives. Meanwhile, us kids would either play board games or go our own seperate ways to escape the boring doldrums of the post-dinner atmosphere. I usually took walks by the edge of the marsh (I was a good swimmer and besides, the water was never more than 2 feet deep in the deepest areas) with Aunt Elise on that as well or sometimes when Grandpa's arthritis wasnt so bad he'd take me further into the marshes and we'd go fishing for a couple hours after dinner. Never caught much of anything but it was just fun spending the time with him. My Grandpa was always so good to me, even when we werent in town for the holidays he would call me on the weekends or send me notes during the week. I miss him so much. Him, Grandma, Aunt Elise and all the good things those holidays in Michigan meant to me, good people, good times.
As we all know, life is always changing and those giant family dinners stopped the year after my Grandpa died. My Grandma and Aunt Elise held onto the house for as long as they could but then after Elise died and Grandma gotta bit older she sold the old homestead (that's what we all called it, lovingly of course) and moved in with Aunt Sal and Uncle Will. I still visit my Grandma every year for Christmas but I did happen to make it back to Michigan for Thanksgiving back in 2003 or 2004 and though it was great to see Gram, the rest of it just wasnt the same. Not just the little things like the food, but the sense of family, the air of excitement regarding the entire holiday. Instead of great food and great times, those things have been replaced with lousy, horrible food (like I said, no one can cook like my Gram, no one) with all attention focused on my overly religious sister and the little bigots her and her lazy husband have done sucha stellar job on raising. It's funny, but when we were growing up my Aunt Elise use to tell me secretly "Ya know, I dont like your little sister!" to which I would always let out a huge whoop and say "That's okay Aunt Elise, I dont either!!" I remember as I got older her and I would always laugh about that exchange and she would always tell me "Oh that was terrible of me to say that to you when you were so young! I should be ashamed!" and I use to always hug her and say "No it wasn't, look at whatta nasty, mean-spirited, bigoted little witch she grew up to be!" And we'd laugh, we'd always laugh.
This Thanksgiving, 2010, I'll be having dinner with one of my former neighbors from my old neighborhood and her family and I think it will be fun. She's a very nice elderly lady and she told last night if we all get bored after dinner we can always run down to Foxwoods for a few hours! Having a giant family-style dinner followed by a few hours of playing the slots doesn't sound traditional by any means but hey, maybe holidays dont always have to be traditional to be enjoyable?
But regardless of what I do on that day I will be calling my Grandma as I do on every holiday that I'm not there with her. No conversation of ours is complete without talking about the "good times" as we both call them. I love her and miss her very much and as much as I am always criticizing and negating the state of Michigan, I cant imagine any other place I'd rather be on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day than with my Grandma in Michigan. I've been at her for years to get the hell outta there and come live with me in Boston, where the medical care is so much better and there are so many more things available for the elderly;but, she's happy where she's at, it's where her roots are and it's good enough for her. And that's good enough for me. Plus she's always telling me whenever we chat on the phone "Dont be worried about me, I aint gonna be around forever, so get busy and find yourself a husband!" Eighty-eight years old, a proud member of "The Greatest Generation" and she's telling me to find a husband - gawd, I love that woman!!
Personally, I have a lot to be extremely thankful for this year. Aside from being extremely over-elated that I am still alive after living with Hiv for 21 years and that my health is pretty much stable for the most part, I'm equally thankful that I'm still making it on my own as well as for the fact that unlike last year at this time, I now have many new friends whom I love dearly and several whom I consider my new family. Sure, it'd be great to win the Lotto and be independently wealthy forever, but I still say if you have friends who care about you and people who love you, you are rich. Can't get any wealthier than that. Wishing everyone out there a very safe and Happy Thanksgiving, 2010, one filled with great health and good fortune. Thank you for reading.
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